??? 1864 Chatham Birth Mystery

??? 1864 Chatham Birth Mystery

I'm pulling my hair out trying to solve the mystery of my great-great grandma Nettie's birth. Any help or advice would be much appreciated by my sanity!

So here's the conundrum:

According to her obituary, Nettie A Little was born on Sep 03 1864 in Chatham, Ontario. On her son's 1891 birth certificate she says her name is Nettie Alvoord Little, maiden name Wilder.

In 1880 she is living with Henry and Celia Wilder in Chicago, IL with her two sisters Nellie (1863, MI) and Ida (1866, MI). In 1870 Henry, Celia, Nellie and Ida are living in Bay City, MI... BUT Nettie is nowhere to be seen!

But wait, in the the same city is a couple named Henry and Marcia Alvord who have a little 5-year-old daughter born in Canada. And yes, her name is Nettie!

To make matters even weirder, it turns out that Marcia Alvord is Celia Wilder's older sister, and that after 1870 the Alvords live an apparently childless life until they both die in Los Angeles in the 1920s.

So is Nettie a Wilder, an Alvord or a Somethingelse???

My personal theory is that Nettie is the second daughter of the Wilders but that after Celia had her third-child-in-three-years her older sister Marcia (who had been married for 10 years without children) kind of "adopted" Nettie... At least until 1880.Another clue is that while Henry Alvord has a well-documented history in the Civil War, Henry Wilder does not, implying he may have moved to Canada to evade the draft. (Both the Wilders and Alvords were living in Bay City, MI in 1860.)

Just a theory, however, and without more evidence, like a birth record, it's hard to say for sure who Nettie's real parents were.